Artist Ettore Simonetti | Orientalist Italian watercolorist painter | 19th century

Ettore Simonetti was an Orientalist Italian watercolorist visual artist who was born in 1857. His nephew Amedeo Momo Simonetti (called Momo, 1874-1922), following the example of his uncle, also became an artist.Many of the artist's works have been auctioned, including 'The carpet merchant' sold at Christie's London '19TH CENTURY EUROPEAN ART INCL. ORIENTALIST AND SPANISH 'in 2008 for $ 1,102,234. The artist died in 1909.

He was part of a group of watercolorists that included Enrico Tarenghi, Giuseppe Aureli, and Giulio Rosati. Although it would appear that they never travelled to North Africa or the Middle East, they created Orientalist works, based on photographs, other artists' illustrations, and traveler's descriptions.

Ettore simonetti came from big artists family , his mother's family was a great mosaic artists , also his father ( francesco ) was specialized in woking with gold as a worksmith , also as craver , his older brother ( attilio ) inspired him much as we can see in Ettore work , also attilio got much experience from the spanish artist ( mariano fortuny ) , Ettore's nephew amedo who was studing art with his was an orientalist painter.

Ettore was able to reconstruct the scenes for his paintings. Many of his works employed the same figures; rearranged or in different settings.

He also had a passion for the Eighteenth Century, with counts, musketeers, cardinals and ladies in period costumes. His influences, in this case, came from the Baroque painter, Pietro Longhi.

In 1882, he participated in an exhibition of the "Associazione Artistica Internazionale" followed, in 1899, by one at the "Società degli Amatori e Cultori di belle Arti" and, in 1900 at the "Società degli acquarellisti". He occasionally taught at the nude drawing school at the Accademia di Belle Arti di Roma.